Archive for October, 2015

The lion strength, courage and kingly appearance have helped earn it the nickname “King of Beasts.”

The lion is often called the “king of beasts.” Probably this is not because the lion could defeat all other animals in combat, and it is not by any means the biggest animal.

But the lion ranks among the fiercest and strongest of the entire wild creature.

Its powerful body and the long mane around the head and neck of the male give the lion a proud and kingly look. The loud roar of its voice strikes terror in the many different animals it preys on.

The lion was long been used as a symbol of strength and courage. We say “strong as a lion and “lion-hearted,” and images of lions were often used on the crest of kings to indicate power.

Today, lions live on the open, grassy plains of Africa.

Except for the tiger, the lion is the largest member of the cat family. A large male can measure more than nine feet long from the tip of his nose to the end of his tufted tail, and weight more than 400 pounds. –Dick Rogers

The jackrabbit gets its name from its long ears, which resemble those of a jackass, or donkey. Though it was originally called a “jackass rabbit,” this animal’s name has long since been shortened to “jackrabbit.” The jackrabbit is a hare, and not a true rabbit.

It has longer ears and longer legs than a rabbit. This large hare can run up to 45 miles an hour to escape its enemies. While running it often makes great leaps, or “spy hops,” as if to check on the pursuer. Jackrabbits hide most of the day, and come out at night to eat plants and farm crops.–Dick Rogers

Since an owl cannot move its eyes around like a person can, it has to turn its whole head in order to look in another direction. Owls have many more vertebrae in their necks than people do. The neck bones are so flexible, that an owl can turn its head almost all the way around.

All birds have flexible necks. Even the little sparrow has twice as many vertebrae in its neck as a person has. A flexible neck is important. It enables the bird to look in all directions for danger, to catch food more easily, and to reach any part of its body with its beak.–Dick Rogers

The little Shetland pony originated on the Shetland Islands, where a harsh climate and lack of food favored a small, tough animal. These ponies are descended from normalized horses brought to the islands a thousand years ago.

The islands—rugged with long, cold winters—do not grow enough food for big horses with large appetites. As the horses adapted to their hard like, they grew smaller in size. By breeding only the smallest horses, people in the Shetlands have developed even smaller Shetland ponies. Some are only 32 inches high.–Dick Rogers

A coelacanth (pronounced SEE, luh kanth) is a large rare fish from deep in the oceans around Africa.

What makes the coelacanth so unusual is that it is perhaps the world’s most primitive bony fish. It was once thought to have been extinct. But in 1938, a living coelacanth was caught by a fisherman off the east coast of Africa.

Almost unchanged since its origin, this strange-looking fish was bright blue in color. It was five feet long and weighed 125 pounds. It had leglike fins, probably used for crawling about in the sea, and its head was covered with thick scales.

If the fisherman had found a living dinosaur, he would not have attracted more attention in the scientific world.

Scientists knew the coelacanth only from fossils and had assumed that the prehistoric fish had died out 60-million years ago!

Since the discovery of a live coelacanth, several more of these “living fossils” have been found. – Dick Rogers